A World of Accusation

The trees all listen and
judge the humble,
the heartless, and
all in between.

A girl walks alone,
Lost in her way
Touching the wrong trees
At all the right places.

What a bigot. A prejudice,
Narrow-minded fool.
How dare she touch that tree!
The leaves all whisper.

She finds another lost soul;
A little bird that has fallen
From the trees so mean.
It whimpers.

She kisses it and is accused
Of flashy, showy views—
Values that don’t exist;
Her innocence is nonexistent.

The young girl picks up
A single, smooth stone
And throws it naïvely, unknowingly
Against an elderly tree.

What a hypocrite
The trees all scoff in disgust.
This little girl despises us
And only loves that appealing, small creature.

She chooses what she will love
They murmur branch to branch.
The little girl hears this, in the wind,
For the first time.

I did not mean to harm you, dear trees
She sweetly defends, imploring
Forgiveness for her ignorance.
The trees bend in resentment.

You will never learn, child,
The trees scorn in dislike
You are a prejudice human being
And this you’ll forever remain.

The child somberly lowered her head
And kicked a rock at the ground in grief,
Which upset the cruel trees,
And scorned the girl more.

The girl, now in tears,
said she meant them no harm,
The reply to her now was that
No one ever does.

At the puzzled girl’s face,
The leaves billowed and laughed
We know no one is virtuous, good, or
Clean.

So forever we’ll search
For the flaws of mankind
Until nothing is safe
To say or to do.

The little girl still looked puzzled
When she replied to the wind:
But all will be silent
If nothing is right.

The trees bent in delight
At the words of the girl
As they replied
In a cynical whistle:

No one will silence
Themselves or their minds,
So we’re here to judge them
For their judgments unidentified.